So Chic, Very Chic: Pickleball ‘Challengers’
This is So Chic, Very Chic, PAPER’s examination of Bravo’s sprawling cohort of fashion obsessives. From haute couture to TJ Maxx, they’ve literally worn it all. Sometimes they stunt, sometimes they turn the look, and sometimes they burn holes in retinas my ophthalmologist says might never heal.
Has anyone seen the movie Challengers? I thought it was kinda neat. Briefly, it is a movie about two men who kiss because of a girl, and also because they love each other, which to them is the same as hate. If not hate, then competitiveness, which gets back to the kissing, a product of their barely concealed sexual tension because of the aforementioned girl. They play tennis, and then one quits. And it’s the girl who gets them to play tennis together again. They don’t kiss a second time, except with their spirits, rackets in hand, challenging each other to a tennis duel. Get it? That’s why the movie is called Challengers. As the screenwriter for the film once infamously said: “Wowza.”
The movie’s been on my mind, mostly because the thing has become shorthand, like most movies of its ilk, for more complex feelings of lust and hatred and fucking and threesomes and irony. While dancing with friends at the club in various cities around the country this summer, someone would inevitably turn to another and say: “This is just like Challengers.” In the Pines this past weekend, two friends sandwiched me at the infamous Ice Palace underwear party. That’s about as descriptive as I can get in the hallowed pages of PAPER, but needless to say, covered in sweat and underwear and the fluids and colognes of 100 other people, I turned to one and was like, “This is just like Challengers.”
It helps, of course, that I’m a beautiful woman like Tashi Duncan. While I’m loath to rely on a now out-of-circulation film for such unclever jokes, I can’t pretend I’m not addicted to it. I saw three rats in New York City fighting over the same bag of discarded McDonalds and whispered, “Challengers.” When my best friend’s boyfriend and I fight over her attention, that’s also Challengers, except we’re girls, which is still Challengers. Even this week’s Real Housewives of Orange County episode pulled out a Challengers reference from me, except with pickleball.
Didn’t think I was going to land that plane, huh? Well, I’m quite skillful at just about most things, including my expert criticism of Bravo fashions. Shall we?
The Real Housewives of Orange County
Gina Simpson and Emily Kirschenheiter
Challengers! Do you get it? These two are best friends with an understated sexual tension and codependency fighting on a tennis court. Excuse me, a pickleball court. That’s like tennis for people who want to pay more money to seem less cool.
To mark the occasion, they wore some sporty fits that made me giggle. Not because they looked bad, per se, but because their taste levels are so fundamentally misaligned. Gina gestures at the trend cycle via Nordstrom Rack teen brands, while Emily dresses like the bitter first wife with a large settlement and a closet full of Versace. It makes for some interesting difference in class signifiers between them. While Gina is busy seeming not really rich but at least fashionable enough to appear on the Real Housewives, Emily wants her body plastered in designer logos and gaudy jewelry and big fucking sunglasses. Again, this is not a significant criticism! I’ve come around on Tweedle-Gucci and Tweedle-BDG’s purpose on this show. (BDG, for those who don’t know, is an Urban Outfitters label.)
Jesus Jugs
This woman’s name is actually Alexis Bellino, but she chose violence this week. And so shall I! Here’s the deal: When you get brought back to this show as a desperate, single blonde, you’re charged to stir shit up by the powers that be. Poor Taylor Armstrong suffered that same fate last season when she tussled with Heather Dubrow, and like she demonstrated in such excruciating detail, it is neither a desirable or powerful position to hold. Alexis, fresh off doing whatever the hell she kept herself busy with the last decade, climbed back into relevance by dating a man who is ruthlessly punishing his ex-girlfriend on television. In fact, his misogynistic revenge fantasy is just about the only thing they have in common. He gets the sick pleasure of watching a woman cry every week, and she gets to sell products on her Instagram story for just enough money to make the house payment. If only she dressed the part!
This ‘fit, for which she chose to stage a fake fit, is boring, beige and generally uninteresting. Just like her Ramona Singer impression! Really, there’s just too much jewelry and too much beige and too much visible root. Try again, Alexis!
Emily Simpson
Rate compliment for Emily: This is the best she’s ever looked in a confessional! I’m serious … the dress, the fit, the bronze, the demure hair, the drop earrings and the addition of black around the neck. It’s all quite elegant! (That’s a word I never thought would apply to an Emily Simpson confessional! Of all things!) She’s like if Elizabeth Taylor knew about Revolve. Kudos, mama! You spilled a bit. Maybe even tore, just a little.
The Real Housewives of Dubai
Chanel Ayan
My girl has done it again! I’m running out of superlatives to talk about the way Chanel wears clothes, and to be quite honest, I’ll be relieved when the season comes to a close and I don’t have to spin up the compliments machine each week for her outrageous fashion sensibilities. Like, how does one even go about engaging with a golf outfit that looks like this? Mind you, everyone else was in actual golf clothes, then here comes Chanel Ayan in ostrich feathers and a velvet unitard. I love her unconditionally, for real.
She also donned another elaborate headpiece and beaded dress combo for dinner at the end of the episode. It was the only look of note, or the only look I could snag proper evidence of. It’s gorgeous! She looks gorgeous! But am I the only one who wishes the headpiece wasn’t silver jewelry in heavy contrast to the warm, cream colored ensemble?
Lesa Milan
On the opposite end of the spectrum is Miss Lesa Milan’s dress here, which I swore I’ve seen before somewhere. That, or it looks like just about every other costume-esque gown these women parade in around Dubai. It’s not the badly-fitted bust, or the color though, that bothers me. It’s that Chanel Ayan is sitting right across from her, and the whiplash has given me a headache.
Photos courtesy of NBCUniversal/Bravo
This is So Chic, Very Chic, PAPER’s examination of Bravo’s sprawling cohort of fashion obsessives. From haute couture to TJ Maxx, they’ve literally worn it all. Sometimes they stunt, sometimes they turn the look, and sometimes they burn holes in retinas my ophthalmologist says might never heal. Has anyone seen the movie Challengers? I thought…